DIMPLEX Provide Miskin Manor With A Future Fit

Miskin
Manor, a prestigious Grade II listed hotel and leisure club in Wales
is now ‘future fit’, with Dimplex heat pumps as part of a
£1.2million refurbishment that has combined facilities upgrades with
the latest technology for lower energy costs and environmental
impact.

Set in 22 acres of parkland near Cardiff, the leisure club is a
standalone building which attracts all types of users, from sports
professionals to families with young children and an essential part
of the facilities upgrade was the fast response and control of the
heating system.

Miskin’s group facilities manager, Amanda Rosenberg, explained: “We
wanted to achieve the best of all worlds in terms of environmental
measures and control. Lower fuel bills are key but it’s equally
important for us to be able to regulate the temperatures easily to
accommodate the needs of different user groups from our 2,000-strong
member base. And the control is quite literally push-button.”

Dimplex installer partner WDS Environmental designed the system
which is due to be extended into the main hotel building later in
2009. Two Dimplex LA 28 AS air source heat pumps have been
installed; one to provide heating and high demand hot water for the
showers, the other for the swimming pool, with spare capacity for
extension into the next phase of the hotel’s refurbishment
programme.

The heat pump serving the swimming pool is connected to a hot water
and air handling unit, with a 500 litre buffer tank to meet demand
as required. And the high levels of efficiency were put to the test
as soon as the installation was complete in December 2008 when the
weather conditions were very cold – the external air temperatures
didn’t rise above four degrees Celsius for over two weeks and
dropped to around minus five degrees at night. However, the heat
pump successfully raised both the water and air temperatures in less
than a week, allowing the pool to be opened in time for the
Christmas holidays.

“The cold winter was ideal for us to really see how this system
worked and we were not disappointed,” added Amanda Rosenberg. “As
soon as the system was fired up it delivered mountains of hot water
and it’s been even more efficient than forecasted. We’ve seen a
major reduction in all our fuel bills since the Dimplex heat pumps
were installed and estimate our energy consumption has come down by
as much as 50 percent.”

The family-run business took a strategic, long term business
decision to invest in low carbon technology, the first phase of
which within the £1.2million refurbishment has a project cost of
over £100k.

“Already we’ve halved our energy bills but this is not just a quick
fix. We’re making these investments for the long term for
environmental reasons as well as being in a strong position for the
future as the tax and corporate social responsibility pressures on
businesses to lower their carbon footprint will continue to
increase,” said Amanda.